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February 15, 2005
The Direction of the Gesture
[Talking with Derek this morning, he dropped a pearl before me, and I assure you it wasn't wasted. Thought I'd share my take on it...]
The blogging Gesture is not one I intuitively execute. I am much more familiar with the reflective turn, the naval gaze, the reflexive move towards self-evolution. I keep looking through my blog, the class blog, and my other classmates' blogs for inspiration, for fresh ideas, for insight. Now, I realize that what I have just said sounds like these sites lack those things I mentioned, and that this could seem insulting. Not so. They do not; they certainly have ideas, information, and insight for me, but they are the sites of what I would call my inward-looking circle of influences--and moving centripetally denies the the Direction of the Gesture.....
Derek's description of the blogging gesture this morning woke something up in my brain and made a connection I had either not made, or had not articulated: the blogging gesture is an outward gesture, a look around, beyond the inner circle of our everyday material lives. The ideas of those of us sharing the same coursework in the same PhD program are already heavily imbricated because of our shared foci. So for us, it seems to me, blogging provides an outward look at what isn't located in our daily culture. Not only will this bring a wealth of perspectives into our inner circles, it will also help to keep our gaze light, moving, and curious, rather than fixated where we're sitting with each other.
I have not yet begun (in earnest, anyway) to source out and link to ideas in other blogs. Hell! Embarassingly, I've barely begun to read other blogs. My goal this weekend: find at least three new blog sites that fascinate me, and link to them. Pretty humble, but it's a start.
Posted by dwinslow at February 15, 2005 10:40 PM
Comments
Here's the link to Collin's original post about blogs-as-outlook, blogs-as-inlook:
http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/cgbvb/archives/2004/12/pedablogging.html
You'll be please to know, Di, that (I think) you've captured what he's looking for us to capture. :) As long as you sustain the outlook once the "real" class disintegrates.
Posted by: madeline at February 16, 2005 12:07 AM
It's dawning on me, albeit slowly, that I will never be able to quit! ;) I may have just found my new vice, Maddie!
Posted by: di at February 16, 2005 09:59 AM